Driver Update: ATI Catalyst Linux Display Driver 9.6

AMD has released new Linux drivers for its ATI Radeon video cards. The download is 89.3MB in size and can be used for both 32bit and 64bit environments. Version 9.6 is compatible with Radeon HD2400, Mobility X2300 and FireGL V3600 and above. Other system requirements are versions 6.8 through 7.4 of X.org, Linux kernel 2.6 and glibc versions 2.2 or 2.3. We do not find any new features in this release. However, several problems have been fixed and AMD says that there are still a few problems that are still being worked on:

Resolved Issues

• Catalyst Control Center, the primary display is now identified when using the Identify Displays button
• Error message no longer occurs while setting the TV geometry ATI Proprietary Linux Release Notes 5
• Game corruption does not happen in full screen when 2 monitors are connected and RandR 1.2 is enabled
• TV screen corruption is no longer visible while starting the X-server on some ASICs
• Executing the following command : aticonfig –initial -f does not cause the following message “No supported adapters detected” on some display adapters
• Detecting second display using amdccle “Detect Display” button no longer results in error and will require a relaunch to detect both displays properly
• Mplayer does not fail to render video when resizing DVD playback window
• Fixed: Some system may become unresponsive after starting and killing X-server
• [SUSE 11.X x86] System no longer fail to respond when executing multiple server generations

Known Issues

• Although listed in the documentation, ADL_Adapter_ClockInfo_Get is not available in the current version of the ADL. The code for obtaining the clock information was excluded due to inaccurate information being reported when the card is over-clocked. Future updates of ADL SDK will reflect this change. As an alternative, ADL_Overdrive5_ODParameters_Get() can be used but this API is only supported on R600 and above ASICs
• Enabling desktop effects “transparent desktop” may cause desktop icons and application windows to disapear
• Some systems may report no CrossFire™ adapters available during driver re-install
• System may become unresponsive when toggling between virtual terminals in multihead configuration with application running
• Starting X with a second hotplugged display may cause segmentation fault
• Swapping screens in dual-head mode may cause no video on the secondary display
• System may stop responding when running “Return to Castle Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory”
• Video playback may exhibit corruption when desktop effects are enabled and composite video is not explicitly disabled
• [SUSE11] The display may not turn off while disabling video output
• [Ubuntu 8.10] System may become inoperative when starting X on surround view system
• Switching to full screen DVD playback with Totem Player may cause some systems to become unsatble
• Setting the mode 1280x720p @60Hz or 1280×1024 @60Hz may cause a HDTV display to blank in a multi-display configuration
• The engine clock and memory clock values ​​may be incorrectly reported by ATI CAL as 0MHz